Electric cars have notched up their biggest Australian milestone yet. In August, they outsold petrol cars for the first time, taking almost a quarter of all new vehicle sales. For households, that also means more transport energy is shifting from the petrol bowser to the electricity meter.
How Fast Are EV Sales Growing?
More than 27,000 battery electric vehicles (BEVs) were sold in Australia in August, accounting for 24.9% of all new vehicle sales.
That put BEVs ahead of petrol cars, which took 23.7% of the market, and diesel at 21.7%. The Tesla Model Y was Australia’s best-selling vehicle of any kind for the month.
One month doesn’t make a revolution, but August wasn’t an isolated spike. BEVs accounted for more than 20% of new vehicle sales in each month from May through August.
The longer-term numbers make the change even clearer. Australians bought just 1,053 BEVs in 2018. Sales reached 33,416 in 2022, 87,217 in 2023 and about 103,000 last year.
More than 154,000 had already been sold by the end of August this year. That’s around 50% more BEVs in eight months than were sold during the whole of 2025, with four months of the year still to go.
Australian annual BEV sales. 2026 sales are January–August; the hatched section is a simple pro-rata projection for the full year. Sources: VFACTS/Electric Vehicle Council.
The EV Boom Is Coming Home
The significance of household electrification becomes clearer when you look at where all those cars get their energy.
Around 80% of reported Australian EV charging happens at home, according to the Federal Government.
That means the rapid growth in EV sales isn’t just changing what Australians drive. It’s moving a sizeable chunk of transport energy from petrol stations into homes.
The average Australian car travels about 33 kilometres a day. As an illustration, an EV consuming 170 Wh/km would need about 5.6 kWh to travel that distance, before allowing for charging losses.
That’s substantial compared with the 11–23 kWh of electricity the government says a typical Australian home uses each day.
At the lower end of that household range, adding an EV that uses 5.6 kWh per day increases electricity requirements by about 51%. Even compared with a 23 kWh/day household, it’s an increase of around 24%.
EV figures are illustrative, assuming 170 Wh/km and excluding charging losses. Australian Government guidance puts typical household electricity use at 11–23 kWh/day and average driving at about 33 km/day. Source: Australian Government.
Actual EV consumption will vary with the car, how far it’s driven and driving conditions, but the scale of the extra household electricity demand is hard to ignore.
Your Biggest Load Is In The Driveway
There’s another way EVs change the electrical equation at home.
A dedicated home EV charger can draw around 7 kW on single phase, potentially making the car the largest single electrical load in the house. Three-phase homes can support even higher charging rates.
Unlike many big household loads, however, EV charging is often flexible. Most cars spend plenty of time parked, so charging doesn’t necessarily have to happen the moment the driver arrives home.
That creates opportunities to charge when electricity is cheap or when rooftop solar would otherwise be exported to the grid. For households considering solar, an EV also changes the calculation, because energy that was previously bought as petrol or diesel can increasingly be supplied from the roof.
Eventually, some EVs may do more than consume household electricity. Vehicle-to-home (V2H) uses the car’s battery to power the house, while vehicle-to-grid (V2G) sends electricity back to the grid.
Neither is yet an everyday proposition for most Australians, but both are moving closer to the mainstream.
The New Home Energy Equation
Australia’s latest EV milestone, therefore, matters well beyond the car market.
As EV numbers climb, more of the energy Australians use for transport is moving behind the household electricity meter. That makes an electric vehicle an increasingly important consideration when sizing solar and deciding how and when a home uses electricity.
If an EV is already in your driveway or likely to be in the future, factor it into your plans before installing solar. SolarQuotes can help you get quotes from vetted solar installers who can size a system with your current and future electricity needs in mind.
About Kim Wainwright
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